ELVIS and VIM Editors

Topics

The "vi" Unix editor is a favourite of many programmers.
ELVIS and VIM are public domain clones of this Unix "vi"
style editor. ELVIS was developed by
Steve Kirkendall, and
the ELVIS source is
freely available.

As we are familiar with using VI (or its clones) on a number of
different platforms we thought we would like to have the same editor available on the Psion platforms.

We ported ELVIS to the Psion 3a (it will also run quite happily on the
Psion 3c, Psion 3mx and the Sienna) so that it could be used with CPOC
as an alternative to the text editor built into the Psion.
ELVIS can also be used, however, as a free-standing editor
in its own right completely independently of CPOC.
One key benefit of ELVIS is that it does not suffer
from the file size limit (of about 40K) of the Psion 3a built-in editor.

The Psion 3a port is basically a straight port of the core ELVIS code
with the minimal changes needed to get it running on the Psion. We then added
additional front-end code to add Psion style menus and help.
For those interested, the version of ELVIS that we ported was v1.8 patch level 4.
If anyone is particularily interested they can
contact us
to obtain copies of the ELVIS sources which includes the
modifications we made to get ELVIS running on the Psion.
Just a few features have been added to adapt it to the Psion 3a:

ELVIS was made into a Psion application that can be installed on the system screen.

Support for the Psion keyboard cursor and page up/down keys added.

Support for Psion-Z to zoom the font size, plus the option to save this
setting to the ELVIS initialisation file.

Support for Psion resource files added. This means that the capability
exists to use languages other than English although we provide no other
languages yet as part of the standard port.

There have been a number of enquiries about whether we intend to
to produce a version of ELVIS for the Psion Series 5. There seems
to be a particular demand for this as the Psion 5 WORD application
(unlike the Series 3a/3c version) cannot edit standard text files.

We have decided that rather than port ELVIS, we would port a newer
VI clone called VIM. This is now getting close to completion.
The work is actually being done by my brother. The latest detailed
information on progress (and possible early releases) will be
available from the
VIM page on
his web site

A interesting by-product of our port should be a CURSES library for
use with EPOC and its associated screen emulation.
This may be of interest to others who are interested in porting Unix based programs that use Curses as their screen handling mechanism.

There is a port of the ELVIS editor available for use on QDOS/SMS systems.
This should be compatible with all versions of QDOS and all QDOS compatible
systems.

There are actually two separate variants of the QDOS/SMS port avaialble.
These differ by the way that they internally handle the screen. One makes
use of the CURSES library to do screen handling. the other makes use of
specially written routines that make direct calls to QDOS to do screen
handling. They should in principle be functionally equal (barring any bugs).

ELVIS editor for the Psion 3a/3c/Sienna (70Kb) Release 7.1
This is the minimum you need to use ELVIS. As well as the program
binary it includes the README file mentioned above which give instructions
on the Psion specific issues, and guidance on where to install the ELVIS
files on the Psion.
This is release 7.1 for the Psion 3a/3c. The README file has a change
history if you want to see what has changed between the different
Psion releases.

ELVIS will require about 128Kb of System memory while
it is running, plus RAM disk space for its temporary files. We have
only tested it on 512Kb machines or better. It is unlikely to run
satisfactorily on any smaller configuration.

ELVIS editor for QDOS/SMS
(128Kb)
These are the QDOS/SMS binaries. If you want the manual or source
If you do not already have Environment Variable support on your system
(it is shipped with C68 and many other modern QL programs) then you
will need to also download that from here.

ELVIS documentation (61Kb) (QL Quill format)
This is the full manual for ELVIS converted into QL Quill file.
We do not include it in the standard download as it is quite large,
and experienced vi users may well decide that they do not
need it.

ELVIS documentation (66Kb) (text format)
This is the full manual for ELVIS converted into a text file.
We do not include it in the standard download as it is quite large,
and experienced vi users may well decide that they do not
need it. This file is too large for the Psion WORD application to
read, but you can load into ELVIS.

ELVIS resource file source
(21Kb) 14th November 1997
This is the English source to the ELVIS (Release 7.1 for Psion 3x) resource file.
We have made it available in the hope that others will consider doing the
necessary translation to other languages and then send it back so
that we can add support for that language to ELVIS as a standard feature.

ELVIS source v1.8p4
(401Kb) 14th November 1997
This is the full source to the Elvis editor for those who may be interested
in seeing how we did the port, or possibly making amendments to it.
If anyone makes any significant changes please feed them back so that we
can incorporate them as a standard feature.

Note that to build the Psion version of ELVIS, you need to have the
SIBO C SDK that is available from Psion.